Patio door

[Stumbleine]

As part of a new kitchen diner we will be having what is currently a dining room window replaced with some sort of doors out to the back garden.

The opening is approx 2.4m wide. The house is a red brick, detached, built in the late 60s. (So quite square and modernist in design). I just cannot decide a) the style of doors and b) the material and am going round in circles! Eventually we will replace all windows but this project just includes kitchen and utility.

My initial thoughts are to go with sliders as they are more in keeping with the period? Concerns - is the bottom track to high for small dc tripping? Does it get stupidly grubby? Can you get away with upvc sliders or do they only look good in aluminium?

Which brings me to point b. I feel that aluminium might be more suited to the house style (if cost isn't prohibitive!) How big is the step up between good upvc and aluminium generally? Is it worth stretching to even if we still stick with white and not the latest greys?

Would French doors look wrong? We would need sidelights and I fear it would look too 'framey' and busy.
Fwiw the kitchen itself will be a modern design. Sorry for rambling but any advice at all would be hugely appreciated!

Not sure I'm able to advise on style but a friend had grey aluminium bifolds and next door put in grey pvc- they look pretty good! I would certainly say worth investigating pvc as think they are a lot cheaper...

We've just recently decided on aluminium bi-folds. I put a message on here and lots of people replied with helpful advice. I think aluminium are much better than upvc and less likely to bend / be long lasting. We've gone with grey, I think it looks much more contemporary than white.

Actually I think with your gap, you could have 2 x 1.2m doors so you'd only have 1 frame in the middle of the glass whether you went with sliders or bi-folds (I think the maximum width on "standard" bi-folds is 1.2m - any wider than that and it gets very expensive). The frame is slimmer usually in the sliders than the bifolds.

Thanks both.

Does anyone have any cost comparisons on pvc v aluminium? If I do go for white aluminium doors....I wonder if I could get away with pvc for other windows? The windows are all huge.